My family just returned from a week long vacation in Barbados.  Barbados, if you haven’t been, is a wonderful country.  The place is gorgeous, the water is turquoise, the sands are soft and white.  We stayed at The Crane, one of those resorts where if you want to buy into it ala timeshare, you can.  But, unlike most of these places, there is no hard sell.  No soft sell either.  In fact, that was one of the things I liked best about it.  People in  Barbados are pretty laid back in general.

  We noticed this especially at restaurants, as it seemed our food always took a super long time to arrive.  This might have annoyed the crap out of me here at home, but in Barbados, not at all.  We had nowhere in particular to be, and so we just went with it.  We learned to enjoy the extra down time we spent as a family, just sitting around.  Nobody was rushing us to finish up our meals once they did arrive either.  People seemed to be very relaxed.  We started to feel downright zen by the end of the week.  But, it was short lived.

  On our way home we had a layover in Dallas and we were hungry so we made our way to the airport food court.  The kids took some cash and headed over to the burger counter while my husband and I opted for a burrito place called 360.  We got in the line and waited our turn.  There was one lone guy working behind the counter, he was the cashier and the cook, and he couldn’t have been more than 18 or so.  We placed our order and waited while the kid rang us up and collected our money.  While he was keeping one eye on the grill he was figuring out our change and I was thinking to myself how well he was handling it, being back there all by himself.  That’s when I was rudely reminded that I wasn’t in Barbados anymore. A woman with an extremely pinched face came bustling up to the counter, pushed her way between me and the cash register and plunked down her to go container, lid open revealing a burrito that had been hastily unwrapped, contents spewing out.

  “My husband didn’t get any 360 sauce!” she practically shouted, glaring at the poor kid who was still trying to figure out my change.  No, “Excuse me,” no, “When you’re finished with this order I’d like to have a word please,” no manners whatsoever.

  The kid didn’t make eye contact (smart move if you ask me), but continued to pull the change from the register and handed it to me.  “I said,” she practically shouted, “My husband should have had 360 sauce.  And look at this,” at this point she picked up and dropped the container once again on the counter with a dull thud for what she probably hoped was dramatic effect, “It’s completely dry.  No sauce.”

  “What type of sauce would you like, M’am?” The kid asked politely.  "We have two types of sauce."

  “THE 360 SAUCE!  THE SAUCE THAT YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO PUT ON IT, BUT DIDN’T!”  Now I had never eaten at a 360 Burrito place, and started wondering if perhaps there was meth or crack in the 360 sauce.  This would be the only reason I could see anyone becoming so absolutely outraged at the fact that they had been denied some.  Could there be an addiction problem here?  I wasn’t sure, but the way this woman was carrying on, you would think that she had been sold a car with no steering wheel or something.

  The kid stayed calm.  “There are two kinds of sauce M’am," he said again,  "Which would your husband like?”

  “THE 360 SAUCE!!!  IT’S THE LIGHTER ONE.  THAT’S THE ONE THAT’S CALLED ‘360 SAUCE’!”  Then the woman said, to nobody at all, “Jeezus!” and started muttering under her breath.  All I could make out was, “Typical,” and, “Idiot,” and various other words that I won’t repeat.

  All the while the kid stayed cool.  He didn’t flinch at this nut job.  He simply added sauce to the burrito, wrapped it back up, closed the container and handed it to her across the counter.  I was still standing there with my hand out, holding my change, with a look of shock on my face.  I had woken up in a place where people were happy, taking their time, saying, “Good Morning,” and “Please,” and “Thank you,” and making small talk about the weather in a good natured fashion.  Vacation was over, that was for sure.

  The lady snatched the container out of the kid’s hands, gave him a stabbing look, turned on her heel and said loud enough for everyone within a 10 foot radius to hear, “Welcome to America!”  It was like she’d read my mind.